I’ll correct you, then . ** Miller ** clearly explained what he meant by “I didn’t care” :
Had he said “I don’t care” for the reasons you mention, I wouldn’t have had an issue with that, at the contrary.
And homosexuality conjures im many people’s minds the sexual exploitation of altar’s boys by catholic priests.
And so what, if they oppose it? It doesn’t become anymore right or wrong because a particular group with its peculiar agenda opposes it. This in itself doesn’t make it intrisically different from the issue of SSM, at the contrary.
And so what if the Mormons were still supporting polygamy? The issue, objectively, isn’t polygamy, it’s exploitation. And you can perfectly exploit your only spouse. More importantly, you know àperfectly why people oppose polygamy. Not because it leads to exploitation. But because it’s just “not right”.
Many times I’ve seen debates about polygamy, generally, more precisely, about polygamist immigrants (*) Do people who discuss the issue even bother to mention why polygamy is an issue? No, they take for the most part as granted that everybody agree that it’s a bad thing. And why? Because it doesn’t fit in our traditionnal view of marriage (exactly like for homosexuals). And they’re right. Mostly everybody agree without feeling the need to wonder why the concept shouldn’t be tolerated.
The fact that people opposed to SSM use it as an argument so easily also shows that people expect any contradictor to accept the concept that polygamy is a bad thing. And the correct answer to such arguments, as you mentionned at the beginning of your post, should be “so what if it leads to the legalization of polygamous marriage too?” rather than “it’s not the same problem at all”, “slipery slope argument” , or even worse, as i’ve seen even here, by the pro-SSM debater declaring that of course he would never support the evil polygamous mariage.
(*) and yes, it’s an issue that can’t be wawed away by mentionning that traditionnal polygamy, in particular in Africa, is mysogynistic without condemning at the same time all marriages, including monogamous marriages, of people from these countries. The net result of not recognizing polygamist marriages, in these cases, is that some of the co-spouses end up with no rights at all, which certainly doesn’t better their lot, mysogyny or not. Actually, I’m more worried about the situation of “legally unexisting co-spouses” of immigrants than about non-mysogyne westerners wanting to marry a couple SOs, because the latter are in a much better situation anyway. The situation is basicallly: the issue shouldn’t exist at the first place because it’s not right/ polygamy is evil/these marriages are exploitative/it’s illegal here, so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist at all, and put our fingers in our ears singing “lalala” when confronted with the very real problems faced by very real co-spouses.